Investors poured $237 million into virtual world-related startups and payment systems last quarter alone, according to a report released today by industry trade show producer Engage Digital, signaling venture capitalists’ continued enthusiasm in the market. (Nearly $600 million in funding went into this… Read More »
Tech
When it comes to MMOs, freemium worlds for kids are enormously popular and lucrative; for the most part, however, the major game publishers have done little to pursue this market. That changes this month with the launch of Free Realms, a colorful… Read More »
They say numbers don’t lie, and in recent months the number of people populating virtual world Second Life has started to rise again. Mark Kingdon, CEO of parent company Linden Lab, has been touting the return to steady user growth; to back up his claims,… Read More »
While everyone in the game industry was following the latest news from GDC last week, I happened to notice an MMO milestone happening on Facebook: a casual virtual world called YoVille passed 5 million monthly active users. Launched in May of last… Read More »
Today, the casual social MMO RocketOn is launching a beta partnership with six prominent youth-oriented consumer sites: Comedy.com, Hypster, Online Flash Games, Hotspot, Boosh Magazine and faceDub. Now, visitors will find RocketOn’s Flash-based virtual world overlaid on those… Read More »
The massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) business is a lucrative one, as consumers typically first pay for the game, then are charged a monthly fee of $10-$15 to keep playing it. At least that’s the case for huge productions like industry leader World of… Read More »
Real-world games have been tried before, but population density has always been one of their biggest challenges. The gaming might be good in Shattrath, but go to Times Square and you’re alone. Could World of Warcraft’s loyal followers help it make the first big real-world MMO?… Read More »
